Angie Craig: “To fit into this Interior appropriations bill is critical, to pay back the funds within the Department of Agriculture…”

“To fit into this Interior appropriations bill is critical, to pay back the funds within the Department of Agriculture and in the U.S. Forest Service that have been expended for the very fires about which we are concerned. This has to happen. Clearly, it is critical for the operation of the Forest Service. What is also critical, in my opinion, is that the Congress respond in a responsible way to the crisis. You, as chairman, and if you are chairman again in the new Congress or someone else is, should not have to be asking the taxpayers to pay out an additional $1 billion to $1.5 billion to $2 billion more a year because clearly a public policy is failing out there at this moment to address a crisis and, therefore, we are asking the taxpayer to pay for it. That is really what hangs in the balance here. They are intricately locked, I do believe. That is why I think it is so fundamentally important we vote on it at this moment.”